What follows are some remembrances of mine
about my tour in Vietnam as an Explosive Ordnance
Disposal (EOD) officer. First, I’d like to
provide a little background on EOD in the
mid-1960s. The world had seen the invention of
tens of thousands of different kinds explosive devices
since the invention of gun powder. Some of these
were used for peaceful purposes in construction, civil
engineering, even avalanche control. But most of
these inventions were designed and used for war.
Although most of these munitions worked as advertised
when employed against the enemy, there are those that
malfunction, or are never used, and just sat, rusting
away and waiting for degrading, unstable chemical
compounds to be disturbed resulting in an
explosion. Although you could say all explosives
are “hazardous,” when a munition fails to explode as
planned, or is damaged due to rough handling,
exposure, even just from age, they become what
explosives experts call “hazardous,” and hazardous
explosives are very dangerous indeed.

Training men specifically for the job of
disposing of hazardous explosive devices began during
World War II. In the U.S., the job and career
field became known as Explosive Ordnance Disposal,
commonly called EOD. The career field expanded
during the Korean conflict, and when the U.S. presence
in Vietnam grew rapidly in the mid-1960s, many
hundreds of EOD personnel were needed in a hurry, and
they were exposed to a very dangerous job in very
difficult conditions in a very short period.
Today, EOD is one of the smallest, most interesting
and, when needed, indispensable career fields in the
U.S. Air Force. In EOD, the task is to make
hazardous explosives harmless, either by disarming
them, or exploding them where they can do no
damage. Any hazardous explosive is properly the
responsibility of the EOD. This means everything
from small arms ammunition, to missile propellant, to
hydrogen bombs.

One of the key concepts in handling hazards is
that all explosive munitions use some type of fuse,
which in turn contain their own very sensitive
explosive charge. Detonating the fuse causes the
main explosive charge in turn to detonate.
Detonation can be “fused” for impact, or set in many
ways (such as electrically, electronically,
magnetically, barometrically, or chemically) for a
timed explosion. For larger pieces of ordnance,
especially for those dropped or fired from aircraft,
fuses and main charges (the bomb, missile warhead,
etc.) are normally stored separately until they were
hung from their hard points or loaded into the gun,
dispenser, or bomb bay. When launching takes
place, the fuse becomes armed, and ready to work
almost immediately. New munitions even have
non-visible fuses that must always be considered
armed. Because of their function, fuses are far
more “delicate” than the bomb, warhead, or shell to
which they are attached. An explosion nearby, a
fire, or a shock, such as being dropped, can cause
fuses to become very touchy and hazardous.

During my years in EOD, we had many ways to
deal with a hazardous explosive munition. One
was to “gag” the fuse to prevent any change or
movement, separate it from the main explosive charge,
and take both hazards to a safe place for detonation
or proper disposal. Another technique was to
detonate-in-place, if such could be accomplished
without harm. When a hazardous munition was
really suspicious, even after gagging the fuse, EOD
would jar it remotely, and if it didn’t explode,
proceed with removal. Each situation was
different and required a professional approach to
solve the problem and live to tell about it.

We always considered all explosive items armed
and waiting to function. A good EOD troop
treated all explosives as though his and his comrades
lives depended on his actions, because they did.
Each “EOD incident” posed a great danger to the EOD
troop, and his defenses were knowledge, training,
repeated practice, an ability to improvise, a large
dose of common sense, a thick skin, and the ability to
work continuously under very stressful
conditions. It was rare for an EOD team to deal
with truly safe or routine situations, especially when
working with home-made, unfamiliar foreign, or
clandestine explosives, such as was often the case in
Vietnam.

Even when dealing with common U.S. explosives,
any call could be deadly, and trained, professional
EOD troops were in constant danger on the job.
On May 16, 1965, Bien Hoa Air Base, Republic of
Vietnam, was mortar attacked, and several U.S. Air
Force B-57 “Canberra” light bombers were blown up,
scattering their loads of 500-pound bombs around the
flight line. The bombs had armed fuses, and had
been damaged by fire, explosion, and jarring as they
flew around the flight line. These were truly
hazardous munitions. As the base EOD team,
consisting of Captain E. McFeron, and Sergeants C.
Bunch, A. Fidiam, and D. Hubbard, worked to disarm
them, a 500 pounder detonated, killing all four men.

In the 1960’s, the Department of Defense
trained all EOD personnel at the U.S. Navy School,
Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Naval Ordnance Station,
Indian Head, Maryland, on the Potomac River about
forty miles south of Washington D.C. Not only
were the students from the Navy, Army, Marine Corps
and Air Force, but each service provided instructors
for the school as well. The goal of the school
was to prepare EOD troops to deals with, literally,
explosive situations. The basic course was 20
weeks long, and covered both conventional and nuclear
weapons. It involved eight hours a day of
instruction and practical application, and to
graduate, a student also needed to study an hour or
two a day on his own. Since much of the
information was classified to some degree, individual
study normally took place in the secure class rooms or
“practical problem areas.” The course attempted
to prepare students to properly deal with tens of
thousands of different explosives and munitions,
foreign and domestic, modern, and not so new.
Because munitions can lie about for-seemingly-ever and
still explode, the course even included instruction on
Civil War ordnance. Even after graduation, the
education did not stop, as new ordnance was developed
almost daily. Graduates were required to return
to Indian Head every three years for a refresher
course, usually six weeks in length.

In those days, Air Force students in the basic
course first had to volunteer for this hazardous duty
as well as have experience in a munitions field.
Enlisted men came from Conventional Munitions, Air
Force Specialty Code (AFSC) 461X0, Weapons Systems,
AFSC 462X0, or Nuclear Weapons, AFSC 463X0.
Officers were either experienced with conventional or
nuclear weapons, or both, and held an AFSC of
4625. Upon graduation, enlisted personnel were
awarded the AFSC of 46430, and officers added a “B”
suffix to their AFSC (4625B). The graduates were
also qualified for “hazardous duty pay.”
Enlisted men received $55.00 per month, and officers
received $110.00.

I earned my B-suffix in July, 1965, and was
assigned to Homestead Air Force Base, Florida for a
year, where a wide range of EOD “challenges” helped
prepare me for my assignment to Vietnam in October,
1966. What follow are a sampling of some of my
EOD experiences during those early days of the U.S.
experience in South East Asia.

The author at Thu Duc Explosive
Disposal Area, Republic of Vietnam, 1966.The bombs are unserviceable and
hazardous 120-pound Photo Flash bombs ready
for destruction.The nose fuse wells are packed with
C-4 plastic explosive with PETN demolition
cord leading to acentral detonater which will be
fired from a safe distance.

I began my tour as Commander, 375th Munitions
Maintenance Squadron (MMS), Tan Son Nhut (TSN) Air
Field, on the northwest edge of the city of Saigon,
Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Within weeks of my
arrival, the 375th was redesignated the 377th
MMS. Almost immediately thereafter, the USAF
decided to end missions involving munitions at TSN,
and dedicate operations there to reconnaissance and
airlift. My last duty as commander was to ship
all the remaining serviceable munitions and most of
the squadron personnel to other USAF bases in the RVN.

Another officer and I and 15 enlisted EOD
personnel remained at TSN. We formed the 7th Air
Force Mobile EOD Team. Although relatively
autonomous by virtue of our mission, organizationally
we were assigned to the 377th Supply Squadron.
Our Team was responsible for all EOD activity at TSN,
as well as supporting the EOD teams at the other USAF
bases in Vietnam - Bien Hoa, Tuy Hoa, Na Trang,
Pleiku, Da Nang, Phu Cat, Cam Rahn Bay, Bien Thuy, and
Phan Rang. Each of these bases had an eight man
EOD team, but if an incident required more capability
than the base could provide, our 7th AF team would
send the men and equipment required.

We were also responsible for providing EOD
support to the Tactical Air Support Squadron (TASS)
detachments located throughout the RVN. These
detachments flew O-1 “Bird Dog” and O-2 “Duck”
observation and Forward Air Control (FAC) aircraft
from small airfields in support of U.S., Republic of
Korea, and RVN ground combat units. The FACs
used a variety of munitions to mark targets for
fighters, or just to try to get a shot in at the enemy
themselves. They used everything they could lay
their hands on, including 2.75 inch Folding Fin Aerial
Rockets (FFAR) with several different types of
explosive warheads, 40mm grenades and launchers,
machine guns and small arms. They were even
known to drop hand grenades with the pins pulled and
placed in jars, which would arm and detonate when the
jar broke on impact! As you might imagine with
these collections of all sorts of munitions, at one
time or another, each of these TASS detachment sites
presented an interesting EOD “challenge.”

Shortly after my arrival in country, in late
October, 1966, we were notified of an EOD “challenge”
at a TASS site near Nam Cam near the southern tip of
Vietnam. A U.S. Navy A-1 “Sky Raider” aircraft
had a hung bomb which defied repeated attempts to
release or jettison, and then an engine malfunction
forced an emergency landing at the small strip.
The pilot stated that the ordnance was in an “unsafe
condition!” We dispatched Technical Sergeant
(TSgt) S. Jefferson and two other men to the site on
priority airlift. The problem was that the
hung-up 500-pound general purpose high explosive bomb
was fused with a chemical long-delay fuse equipped
with an anti-withdrawal device. This device
would cause the bomb to detonate if the fuse were
removed in the normal fashion - that is by simply
unscrewing it from the nose of the bomb. As the
aircraft had been catapult-launched from its aircraft
carrier, flown an attack mission, and made a very
rough emergency landing, TSgt Jefferson correctly
determined that the fuse must be considered
armed. Having suffered many physical shocks, the
chemical had undoubtedly eaten its way through the
safety features in the fuse, and the firing pin could
be released (fired) by the slightest disturbance,
causing the bomb to detonate.

There is an EOD procedure in such cases, and
that is to hold the fuse immobile and unscrew the
bomb, but this bomb presented a problem - it was still
hung up on its rack on the wing of the Sky
Raider. Sergeant Jefferson and his team finally
solved the problem by removing the bomb and rack from
the wing of the aircraft, manhandling (gently of
course) the assembly onto a truck and moving it to a
ravine at the far end of the air strip. There it
was removed from the truck and detonated using an
explosive demolition charge placed on the bomb.
The use of this type of fuse was discontinued shortly
after this incident.

The final EOD problem TSgt Jefferson and his
team encountered on this mission was scrounging
airlift back to Ton Son Nhut! We always got
priority airlift to an incident site, but almost
always had to make our own arrangements for
transportation back.

On another occasion, we were called to a
forward TASS location near Cau Mau in the Mekong
Delta. The base had been over run by the VC, and
then recaptured by friendly forces. During their
brief occupation of the airfield, the Viet Cong (VC)
had poured fuel on several hundred 2.75 inch FFAR
rockets tipped with white phosphorus (often called
“Willie Peter” - WP) warheads, and set fire to
them. Those that did not explode were in very
hazardous condition. Many had cracked open
allowing air to reach the WP. This was very
dangerous, as WP exposed to oxygen immediately begins
to burn and cannot be extinguished easily. This
in turn would cause the fuse to detonate, detonating
the warhead and spreading WP everywhere. One of
the bad effects of WP is that if it gets on you, it
sticks and produces very bad burns. To prevent
this from happening, Master Sergeant (MSgt) E. Lambert
and Staff Sergeant (SSgt) L. Brown placed most of the
damaged warheads in a crater that had filled with
water to insulate the WP from the air thus preventing
ignition. We then spent several days collecting
the rocket motors, stripping the ballistite propellant
from the tubes and disposing of it by burning
it. The numerous WP warheads, many still under
water in the crater, presented quite an interesting
disposal problem.

Normally, when disposing of high-explosive
munitions by detonation, we tried to position them is
such a way so as to contain and direct the explosion
into the ground, to reduce the amount of shrapnel
flying about. However, with WP the idea was to
explode it into the air, where it all ignites and
burns itself out. If exploded into the ground,
some of the WP would blow into the soil, not burn, and
later work its way to the surface and ignite. In
this instance, we finally solved the problem by
placing the warheads along the side of a large crater
and exploding them sideways across the crater, thereby
keeping the amount of shrapnel at a minimum while
exposing the WP to the air. We could only do
small numbers of warheads at a time, and it took quite
a while to clean up the mess. Our biggest
problem was that exploding WP is quite spectacular,
leaving long white trails of smoke in the air, even
when done sideways across a crater, and we found it
difficult to keep spectators away, especially
Vietnamese children, who never seemed to realize the
danger of exploding munitions.

Soon, we found work closer to home. Late
on October 29, 1966, a very loud explosion sounded
throughout TSN, which everyone thought occurred on or
near the base itself, though there were no reports of
any activity, hostile or otherwise, on the
airfield. We finally got word that the VC had
placed and detonated an explosive charge in a storage
stack of nearly 12,000 eight-inch, high-explosive
artillery projectiles at the thousand-acre U.S. Army
ammunition depot at Long Binh, about 25 miles away,
and that was the explosion we had heard. The
explosion destroyed about half of the projectiles, and
scattered the other half over a very large area - some
up to half a mile away from the original
explosion. The recovery and disposal of these
munitions promised to be very difficult, and we
offered our help to the U.S. Army EOD team based at
Long Binh to clean up the mess.

We proceeded to Long Binh, and joined in
retrieving and then destroying several thousand of the
damaged eight inch projectiles, many of which had been
broken open by the tremendous heat and shock of the
initial explosion. This kind of treatment caused
the explosive in the shell to chemically rearrange,
making it very hazardous and easily detonated.

Staff Sergeant L. Brown, SSgt R. Hunt and I
were assigned to clear a U.S. Army communications
antenna farm where quite a few projectiles had landed,
many buried eight to ten feet deep in the ground by
the force of their fall. We obtained a “High
Speed Entrenching Tool, Combat,” the Army nomenclature
for a truck mounted ditch digger, and got to
work. Our recovery method was to first measure
how deep the projectile was buried by shoving a probe
(a metal rod) through the entry hole, then dig to
within a foot of the shell with our high speed
entrenching tool and finally dig the remainder of the
way to the projectile by hand. We would then
secure a rope sling around the projectile and pull it
to the surface, place it on a cargo trailer, and, when
we had a full load, transport them to an explosive
disposal site for detonation. We dug out and
disposed of over 200 projectiles in this way in the
antenna field alone, and our 7th AF Team recovered and
destroyed over 2,500 of these “hazards” around Long
Binh over the next several days.

One thing I always liked about EOD was the
fact that when you were doing your job, there was
rarely anyone from the I.G. Team looking over your
shoulder evaluating your work. However, we
occasionally did get spectators. One day during
the clearing of the antenna field, SSgt Brown and I
were down in a deep hole affixing a sling to a
projectile, when some Army troops showed up
unexpectedly at the edge of our hole. Sergeant
Hunt yelled down that someone wanted to speak to the
senior man, so I came up out of the hole, and there
before me stood General William C. Westmoreland,
Commanding General, Military Assistance Command,
Vietnam (CG MACV). Seeing we were Air Force by
our blue and white name tags and insignia (which
barely showed through the grime and sweat saturating
our fatigues), he shook my hand and said, “This is
what I call splendid cooperation, thank you very
much.” He followed this up with a letter of
appreciation to all of us working on the Long Binh
recovery.

Eventually, we got the site secured, and
returned to our modest quarters at Tan Son Nhut.
At TSN our EOD team had a barracks “hootch” and a
smaller classroom building. We used the
classroom building to conduct orientation for all
incoming EOD personnel of all services in USAF
munitions and clandestine VC munitions. We also
gave training to fire fighters and security policemen
assigned to Tan Son Nhut in identification and
reporting of explosive hazards. The entire team
lived together as a unit in the hootch, where we also
kept our equipment, personal gear, and tools. We
were each issued a .38 caliber revolver and M-16
rifle, which we kept in a heated storage locker, to
cut down on corrosion and rust. We used
Styrofoam packing material from MK 24 flare cases to
insulate about half the hootch and all the classroom,
and the men had also obtained several air conditioning
units, making the enlisted quarters relatively
comfortable. I slept in an 8 X 10 foot corner
next to our office at the opposite end of the
building.

For transportation our team had a Dodge 4 X 4
crew cab pick up truck (normally called a six-pack),
and an International 2 1/2 ton commercial cargo truck
(this was not an M-series “deuce and a half”).
We used the vehicles to proceed to our field
assignments on and around TSN, and kept the myriad of
unserviceable and hazardous munitions that we
collected around the base in a bunker in the old MMS
storage area. We kept our demolition explosives
(C-4 and TNT) in a separate bunker. The storage
area had been originally built by the French in the
1930s, improved by the Japanese during WWII, reclaimed
by the French after their reoccupation of the country,
and was at the time used by the Vietnam Air Force
(VNAF). It was in deplorable shape.

Each week, or more often if needed, we loaded
the unserviceable munitions into the 2 1/2 ton truck
and transported them about 20 miles through the Gia
Din area of Saigon to an explosive disposal area on
the training ranges at the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam (ARVN) Officer Training School at Thu
Duc. We normally made this run on the same day
each week, and spent several hours destroying
hazardous or unserviceable munitions including bombs,
rockets, missiles, artillery rounds, and captured VC
mines and booby traps.

The disposal site at Thu Duc was controlled
and guarded by the ARVN. On one occasion, six of
us arrived to dispose of about fifty 120-pound “Photo
Flash” bombs, which had been stored outdoors at TSN,
along with several hundred others. These were
WWII-vintage bombs used to provide a brilliant flash
for reconnaissance aerial photography, but were no
longer used by anyone and were becoming quite
hazardous from age and exposure to the elements.
On this occasion, as we drove down the narrow dirt
road to the range control shack we suddenly found
ourselves in the midst of a minor fire fight between
the three ARVN guards and an unknown number of what
had to be VC. The VC had attacked using a 60mm
mortar, grenades and AK-47 assault rifles. We
bailed out of our explosive-loaded trucks and helped
drive off the attackers, who had wounded all three
ARVN soldiers. Soon other ARVN troops arrived,
took the wounded soldiers away, and made sure our
range and the others in the complex were clear, after
which we proceeded to dispose of our photo flash
bombs.

Several months later, while on another
disposal mission to Thu Duc, the VC attacked our EOD
team from a nearby rubber tree grove as we prepared
our munitions for demolition. As we had no means
of communication with anyone, we were pinned down by
small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades (RPG)
for quite some time before a U.S. Army helicopter
gunship passing overhead noticed our situation and
called in help while firing into the rubber
trees. This apparently drove off the attackers,
but it was a distinctly unpleasant experience to be
working with a large amount of already hazardous
munitions with an enemy intent on trying to assist in
causing it to detonate before we were ready! Not
wishing to engage in a third fire fight from trucks
loaded with explosives, we shortly thereafter changed
our weekly schedule to Thu Duc to one a little more
random.

In December, 1966 I was reassigned to
Headquarters 7th Air Force as Staff EOD Officer,
although I still remained as Officer in Charge (OIC)
of our mobile team. As Staff Officer, I traveled
often to the other Air Force bases throughout Vietnam,
learning quite a bit about each base-level EOD team,
their responsibilities, and the problems peculiar to
the aircraft weapon systems they supported.

For example, Cam Rahn Bay, located on the
coast of the South China Sea about 175 miles northeast
of Saigon, had F-4 “Phantom” aircraft assigned, and
had a very large munitions storage area (MSA).
The MSA served not only for the base, but as a storage
location for USAF munitions delivered to Cam Rahn Bay
by ship but ultimately destined for other locations in
RVN. The base also had the responsibility for,
and the problems related to, a specialty munition
designed especially for local conditions - the
multi-ton Fuel Air Explosive (FAE) bomb. These
huge bombs were used to clear helicopter landing sites
in the jungle. The bombs looked like sheet-metal
water tanks, and worked by spreading a vapor in all
directions upon impact, which was then detonated by a
delay fuse, and the resulting over-pressure explosion
flattened everything for hundreds of yards.
Although later designed to be dropped from fighter
aircraft, at the time they were so unwieldy they had
to be dropped from the cargo compartment of C-130
“Hercules” 4-engined cargo aircraft.

The VC made a habit of attacking MSAs, and one
of these attacks on the Cam Rahn Bay MSA destroyed or
made hazardous many tons of conventional munitions,
and damaged several of these new FAE bombs, which had
been stored outside. The FAE bomb skins had been
breached, and the contents were leaking out.
This created a situation where EOD personnel had to
think on their feet - the FAE was so new, no
procedures for safe disposal had been developed prior
to its deployment to Cam Rahn Bay! The base EOD
team had to clear the area of the conventional bombs,
rockets, and missiles, then develop a method to disarm
the damaged FAE bombs.

Pleiku Air Base was located in the Central
Highlands about 225 miles north-northeast of
Saigon. The base had A-1 propeller-driven close
air support aircraft, similar to the Navy’s “Sky
Raider.” However, since A-1s were the last
piston-engined attack planes in the inventory, Air
Force crews called them “SPADS,” after the WWI
fighter. SPADS were also used as “Sandys,” which
was the call-sign for the escort aircraft which
provided cover for rescue operations conducted by
helicopters such as the HH-3 “Jolly Green
Giants.” The A-1 was a very flexible weapons
platform as it had a great many hard-points, and could
carry several different kinds of munitions at the same
time on a mission. Many of these munitions
lacked the aerodynamics needed for high speeds, and
could not be carried on the faster jet aircraft.
One of these was a CS (tear) gas canister that would
“skidder” or scoot all over the area when dropped,
instead of just lying on the ground emitting the
gas. These canisters were delivered from a
“dispenser” hung from a hard point on a SPAD.
One day, a dispenser malfunctioned as an A-1 was
taxing for takeoff, unloading its canisters all over
the flight line. The area was saturated with
tear gas canisters skiddering in every
direction. Some of the canisters did not
function, and had to be “rendered safe” so they could
be disposed of.

Pleiku also had some interesting new
munitions. One was dispenser-carried
anti-personnel “Gravel Mines,” which armed as they
were ejected from the dispenser. Gravel Mines
were camouflaged triangular shaped cloth covered mines
resembling “bean bags,” and were used to mine known VC
trails and controlled areas. One night, a
dispenser malfunctioned during takeoff and covered the
runway with hundreds of armed Gravel Mines. Like
the FAE bombs, these were so new that there were no
procedures to render them safe. Senior Master
Sergeant R. Bramini of the base EOD team developed one
on the spot using motor oil to saturate the explosive
mixture and make it inert. First he poured oil
on the bean bag, soaking the outer layer of explosive,
after which he - very carefully - injected oil into
the mine using a jury-rigged hand pump. He got
the runway back into operation after several hours of
this dangerous work in the dark.

At Da Nang the Air Force shared the base with
the U.S. Marines and VNAF. Da Nang was located
on the coast about 100 miles south of the
“Demilitarized Zone,” and about 150 miles north of
Pleiku. Stationed at the base were Phantoms,
A-1s, and A-6 “Intruders,” and an occasional B-52 made
an emergency landing as well. The high terrain
around the base made it relatively easy for the VC to
attack Da Nang regularly with mortars and rockets, and
one night “Charlie” chose it as the first base to be
attacked using 140mm unguided rockets. These
rockets had a warhead about 6.5 inches in diameter,
and the attack resulted in widespread damage and death
throughout the F-4 parking revetments, where many
aircraft were loaded with munitions. Bombs,
AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, and
AIM-45 Shrike missiles were scattered all over, all in
hazardous condition. One of the 140mm rockets
had landed in the VNAF munitions storage bunker,
detonating or scattering more than five hundred
500-pound bombs throughout the base. Captain L.
Bobbit and his base team worked for many hours to
clear the hazardous munitions to enable flying
operations to resume. He also collected pieces
of several 140mm rockets with Russian markings for
intelligence analysis.

Bien Hoa, located just north of Saigon and
east of Tan Son Nhut, had USAF F-100 “Super Sabers,”
VNAF A-1s and TASS aircraft. Master Sergeant P.
Webb of the base team had his hands full just trying
to convince the VNAF munitions personnel to adhere to
basic explosive storage procedures. All VNAF
units handled and stored explosives and munitions in
very hazardous ways, and this caused many
accidents. Plus there was the constant VC threat
- during my tour, Bien Hoa was attacked several times
with 122mm fin-stabilized Russian-made rockets.

Bien Thuy, located about 100 miles southwest
of Saigon, had VNAF A-1s and lots of O-1s and
O-2s. On one visit to the base, I was quartered
in a military-operated hotel downtown in Can
Tho. One morning, while waiting for
transportation to the base, I was planning to wait for
my ride out on the street, but was cautioned by the
GIs managing the hotel to remain inside the
sand-bagged lobby of the hotel, as “you never knew
what might happen outside.” As I waited, I
noticed a Vietnamese man pedal up on his bicycle and
try to lean it against a lamp post across the
street. He seemed to be having some trouble
keeping the bike from falling over, and eventually it
and he fell over, and a very large explosion shattered
all the windows in the area and blew over the
sand-bagged wall in the hotel. When the dust
settled, the man, bicycle, and lamp post were nothing
but a large hole in the street. Remembering this
event, on my next visit I stayed on base in the EOD
Quonset Hut, only to have the VC shell the base with
75mm recoilless rifle fire. These projectiles
would hit the ground on a rather horizontal
trajectory, then skid along until they hit something,
and explode. Two of these skipped up against the
EOD hut where I had been sleeping, and exploded while
I was trying to dig through the floor! I guess
the VC always knew where I was at Bien Thuy.

Even though each base had its own individual
set of problems, we all had many in common. Our
biggest problems was communicating with the right
people when working an EOD incident. The base
EOD teams were usually part of the Munitions
Maintenance Squadron, and their radios were tuned to
the aircraft maintenance network. However, when
working an EOD problem, the majority of our
communications were with the Security Police.
Most base teams resolved this problem by “borrowing”
or otherwise obtaining a portable radio from the
SPs. We also had no way to communicate with
aircraft or gunship helicopters when operating
off-base. Since from the air people on the
ground all look alike, we needed to make sure we
weren’t mistaken for bad guys. EOD teams once
again “borrowed” or obtained PRC-25 portable FM radios
that permitted communications with the Army helos and
FACs, and that helped.

Officially, it took quite some effort in my
role as 7th AF Staff EOD officer to convince the
Powers-That-Be that these temporary communications
“solutions” were an unsatisfactory way to do business,
and required a permanent fix. An example of the
typical response was one I got from Pacific Air Forces
(PACAF) Headquarters at Hickam AFB in Hawaii - they
reported that they had no trouble communicating with
units in Vietnam! With my staff “hat” on, I was
exposed to a lot of that sort of response to what I
believed was my work at the headquarters level -
identifying and solving the problems for the “worker
bees.” Although I felt I understood a lot of the
problems quite well, the troops felt I needed plenty
of hands-on “recurring training” and were always
arranging for me to get down in the dirt and really
get to know their problems first hand. In fact
on several occasions the sergeants told me to get off
my duff and join them on field mission. Not
having any particular excuse not to, I did.

Sometimes, the field missions occurred right
at home. Very early in the morning of December
4, 1966, the VC launched a rather large attack on Tan
Son Nhut, which up until that night had been
considered secure and immune from attack. The
enemy apparently planned to damage or destroy as many
aircraft as possible, and although they attacked many
areas of the base, a concerted effort was made against
parked aircraft and helicopters. The Security
Police did an outstanding job of defending the base,
and killed or captured many of the attackers.
Our EOD team mustered and reported in the command post
and waited for the calls for assistance we knew would
come in shortly. We didn’t have long to wait.

About 0300 hours, Staff Sergeants R. Hunt, G.
Issacs, and I, accompanied by TSgt Phac (on loan to us
from the VNAF), responded to a call at the junction of
the main runway and W-5 taxiway. There, lying in
the intersection, were nine dead and three wounded VC,
all carrying large amounts of explosive demolition
charges, home made grenades, and RPG launchers and
projectiles.

Our immediate job was to examine each VC for
booby traps, especially the wounded, and remove the
explosives from their reach. Most of the VC were
laying face down with their arms under them, and this
often indicated booby traps. Our method of
checking the bodies was to tie a “remote jarring
device” (a 100 foot long rope) to one arm and pull the
body over face up from a distance. If there was
no explosion, chances were there was no booby trap.

One of the wounded VC was moaning and saying
something as we approached. We closed on him
carefully, and TSgt Phac told him to lie still.
He didn’t seem capable of an attack, but playing
‘possum was a widely known trick, so I kicked him
quite hard in the thigh to see if he would do anything
dangerous - and he did! He rolled himself over,
fumbling with a grenade in his hands. An SP with
our team shot him before he could pull the pin as the
rest of us dove for the cover that doesn’t exist in
the middle of a runway! After that episode, we
remotely turned over the remaining wounded and the
dead, but there were no further deceptions from the
wounded or explosions from the bodies, though several
were booby trapped. We removed the explosives
from the bodies and piled the dead beside the
taxiway. Our job was made difficult as we came
under fire several times during this operation.
The SPs would return the fire while the rest of us
tried to dig holes in the pavement with our belly
buttons! Eventually, a VNAF ambulance arrived
and removed the wounded VC.

The next task for our team was to check the
nearby aircraft parking apron where we “rendered safe”
five more dead VC, following the same remote turn over
procedure. By dawn we had stripped over 100
explosive devices from 15 dead and two wounded VC, and
cleared the prime attack area of all explosives.

Meanwhile, TSgt G. Brinkley accompanied a team
of SPs on a sweep along that section of the perimeter
fence where the VC had penetrated the base. They
came upon a wounded VC, and as Brinkley searched the
body for explosives, he heard a metallic click and
knew immediately this VC was booby trapped - a hand
grenade release had functioned and without fast
action, Brinkley was sure to witness an explosion
first hand! He grabbed the grenade from the
wounded VC, and yelling for everybody to take cover,
tossed the grenade over the fence into a water filled
ditch where it went off. His quick thinking
saved many lives.

Another team, with TSgt T. Messier and SSgt R.
Stark, were checking an area near the west perimeter
when they came under intense small arms fire from the
withdrawing VC survivors. After this fire-fight,
they discovered a 15-pound directional anti-personnel
mine together with eight grenades and mines, all
wired, armed and booby trapped to cause much “hate and
discontent” to any pursuing troops. Sergeants
Messier and Stark disarmed and collected these
explosives to end their night’s excitement.

Each of the teams finished their immediate
tasks and returned to our staging area. When it
was light enough to see, we went out to sweep the
parking areas, taxiways, runways, and flight line
buildings for explosives, so the base could resume
flying operations. In total, we recovered over
135 explosive devices, four RPG launchers, and 10
AK-47 assault rifles.

As a result of the night’s activities, I
recommended all the above named EOD enlisted troops
for Bronze Star Medals for their actions, but learned
the hard way not to rely on the paper-shufflers to
produce the results a commander wants for his
troops. I failed to monitor the progress of my
recommendations, and the medals were down graded by
the admin-types to Air Force Commendation Medals for
Outstanding Achievement. After that, I drafted
and submitted all recommendations and followed up on
them through to presentation.

It wasn’t long before Charlie struck again and
gave us more work to do. Before dawn on February
4, 1967, those of us at TSN could hear and feel the
vibrations of several large explosions. The VC
had once again penetrated into the U.S. Army
Ammunition Depot at Long Binh. This time, it was
not just one stack of projectiles they hit. They
had detonated charges on nearly 100 storage pads,
containing almost every type of ordnance used by the
Army in Vietnam, including small arms ammunition,
powder charges, projectiles and fuses for 75mm, 90mm,
105mm, 120mm, 155mm, 175mm and 8-inch artillery,
mortar rounds, anti-armor rocket projectiles, and
mines of all types. Many tens of thousands of
items had exploded and were destroyed, while tens of
thousands of others were in hazardous condition and
scattered throughout the depot.

Our 7th AF EOD Team arrived at Long Binh at
first light and joined the Army EOD Team in searching
for any unexploded VC charges. Several were
found, all of which had been booby-trapped to cause
delay and problems. These we carefully disarmed
and removed from their locations.

The next priority was the 66mm Light
Anti-Armor Weapons (LAW) that lay scattered about in
the hundreds. Many LAWs had fuses that when
armed, either by launching or by being blasted about
such as these had, could explode simply by a change in
temperature as slight as having a shadow cast over
them. These had to be cleared out before we
could get to the rest of the hazards. Our major
concern was ensuring close coordination between teams
so one team did not remotely jar a suspect explosive
while another team was in an exposed position.
My bowels still tighten as I recall taking cover
behind stacks of explosives (the only cover available)
as we worked through the depot jarring LAWs.

Each day thereafter, for two months, six to
eight members of our 7th AF EOD Team worked with our
Army counterparts to clear the hazardous explosives
scattered throughout the depot. The work was
arduous and stressful, but the troops performed in a
very professional and safe manner. Our team
alone put in over 4,500 man hours of very hot,
hazardous labor. In recognition, Lieutenant
General J. E. Engler, Commanding General, U.S. Army,
Vietnam (CG USARV) had a Letter of Appreciation placed
in each man’s personnel file.

All the excitement didn’t happen inside the
depot, however. On 16 February, TSgt H. Cooper,
SSgt R. Hunt, Army Sergeants Olson and Labracco, and I
had collected a 6 X 6 Army Truck full of hazardous
explosives, transported them to the remote disposal
site outside the depot, unloaded the truck and were
preparing the explosive demolition charges, when a
gunship helicopter began circling overhead while the
crew pointed to a distant group of trees.

As we had no means of communicating with the
gunship, we assumed they were warning us of some
problem, possibly VC in the trees. Since we were
not equipped to engage the enemy, we immediately
abandoned our very large pile of explosives, loaded
into the truck and were preparing to leave when the
gunship collided with some high voltage overhead
transmission lines and crashed in flames on the
perimeter of the depot. We immediately drove
through the jungle to the crash site and despite
explosions in the burning helicopter, were able to
extract one seriously injured crew member. One
of our team administered first aid to the injured man,
while the others searched for and recovered the other
three crew members, who were dead. Meanwhile,
the fire had spread to the jungle, causing a serious
threat to the depot, and an HH-43 “Pedro” rescue
helicopter from nearby Bien Hoa Air Base arrived with
a fire suppression kit and a fireman. We
transferred the injured crew member into the chopper,
and it departed for the hospital. Two of our
team then aided the fireman to fight the spreading
fire, while the other three began removing the 48
2.75-inch FFAR and other explosives from the crashed
gunship to prevent their detonation, or worse, being
launched into the depot, possibly causing further
explosions.

Meanwhile, the fire continued. When our
fire-fighting capabilities were exhausted, we loaded
the explosives and bodies of the dead crewmen onto our
truck, and departed the area. On the way out we
were met by an arriving Army Disaster Control Teams
from the depot, sent to control the fire. They
also assumed responsibility for the dead
crewmen. As we prepared to leave, they also told
us we needed to be careful around the transmission
towers and overhead lines, as the area was
mined! Relieved of the bodies, and thankful we
had not discovered any of the mines while at the crash
site, we decided to return to our abandoned pile of
explosives and finish our original job, which we did
without further incident. For our actions that
day at the helicopter crash, we were all recommended
for, and received, the Airman’s Medal, which is the
highest non-combat award for heroism in the armed
forces.

Often, we had to go way out in the field to do
our jobs. During the monsoon season, when it was
normal for it to rain very hard 20 hours a day, a
C-130 was shot down near Moc Hoa in the Central
Highlands. As cargo, it had been carrying seven
pallets of 2.75 inch FFAR with explosive and WP
warheads. Although the aircraft was largely
destroyed by fire, many of these munitions had not
exploded. As the VC made a practice of
recovering munitions from downed aircraft and using
them to make clandestine munitions, such as mines,
grenades, and booby traps for use against U.S. troops
and facilities, we were sent to destroy the unexploded
cargo. We were also to burn the aircraft tires,
so the VC couldn’t make sandals out of them.

At the crash site, we recovered several bodies
of the aircrew, and began the disposal of the
munitions. There was supposed to be an ARVN
company in the area surrounding the site to provide us
some protection, but we never did see any of them, and
at night there were many strange noises in the
surrounding jungle. We spent two days and nights
destroying the munitions using the C-4 and TNT
demolition explosives we had brought with us, and then
awaited our helicopter pick up. I might add that
it was a very hungry mission. Upon our arrival,
we had placed our rations under a piece of the
aircraft to keep them out of the rain, and on one of
our “detonate-in-place” shots, we had managed to blow
up our rations with the surrounding hazardous
munitions.

One EOD job no one liked was checking bodies
at the morgue at Tan Son Nhut. All U.S. dead
were processed through that morgue, and part of that
processing including an X-Ray scan of the bodies to
check for lodged unexploded munitions or booby
traps. When the X-Ray turned up anything
suspicious, our team was called in to render the
explosive safe, and this usually meant digging it out
of a badly mutilated body. Our standard practice
in these cases was to pack our nostrils with Vicks to
block out the odors, and then not eat for a while
following the procedure. Master Sergeant B.
Farthing and I responded one time to recover an
unexploded 60mm mortar round from a body. Morgue
personnel had placed the body in a sand-bagged
enclosure, and we went to work. We had to cut
through skin, muscle and bone to reach the round in
the lower body cavity. Although not insensitive,
Sergeant Farthing was a hunter and outdoorsman, and
didn’t seem to share my problem, which was keeping
down my last meal. We successfully removed the
round, separated the fuse, and transported the
explosives in a sand filled box to our storage bunker
for later disposal.

Just about everyone on our team preferred a
trip in the field over a day at the morgue. We
often went to non-Air Force locations to assist with
tough recoveries and disposals. On one occasion,
a fortified ARVN hamlet on the river in the Mekong
Delta was attacked with mortars, RPGs and rifle fired
grenades. The VC had been driven off, but left
many unexploded munitions behind, including booby
trapped mines. Master Sergeant E. Lambert and
three others were helicoptered to the site and began
disarming and collecting the explosives. They
had to drain a large pond in which to ARVN moored
their rubber river patrol craft in order to get at one
device. Working in the mud, they used their
“remote jarring device” to remove the partially buried
unexploded munitions.

Many of the grenades launched from rifle
grenade launchers had failed to explode and buried
themselves in the soft earth. Each had to be dug
out and then jarred and removed “remotely.”
Sergeant Lambert and his crew recovered more than 30
of these grenades, of which two exploded during their
remote removal, necessitating obtaining new remote
jarring devices! All recovered items were
collected and disposed of by detonation in a safe
area.

Mines were a constant problem in Vietnam,
especially those “lost” and not clearly marked on a
map. There was a barbed wire enclosure about the
size of a city lot on TSN that was needed for the
building of some new structure. As the enclosure
was mined, our team was called in to clear the mines
so construction could begin. We were given a map
and shown where there were six plastic anti-personnel
mines in the enclosure, placed there by the ARVN or
VNAF. Using our map, we located them fairly
quickly, but you know what is left of U and ME when
you ASSUME! We swept the area with a mine
detector and on our hands and knees with bayonet
probes, and Sergeants H. Cooper, F. Bartram, C. Stone
and M. Urban recovered an additional 18 mines!
There were French, Japanese, Russian and U.S. made
mines, some of which had obviously been there since
WWII; they were badly rusted and very hazardous.
Its a wonder a lot of people hadn’t been killed over
the years as they entered the area to lay down new
mines.

In Vietnam, people were always “losing” land
mines. One night a civilian drove a large truck
into an area where someone had “lost” several
mines. The truck struck a mine and blew out a
tire. The driver bailed out and quickly left the
area, luckily without locating any other mines with
his feet. Naturally, we were called out, and
TSgt H. Cooper backed the truck out of the area and
then located two more lost mines without further
damage.

Even when you knew about where the mines were,
there were sure to be incidents. One day, Staff
Sergeants R. Hunt, O. Springsgouth and L. Bailey
responded to a call from between the twin rows of
barbed wire perimeter fence on Tan Son Nhut. An
ARVN security team with a guard dog had blundered into
a mined area, and detonated one of the mines, wounding
the dog and his handler. The injured dog was
uncontrolled and could have easily set off another
mine. Sergeant Hunt entered the area and was
successful in calming the dog, placing a muzzle on it
and carrying it out of the area. The team then
got the wounded guard out and showed the remaining
guards how to exit the area. All three team
members were awarded the Airman’s Medal for their
heroism in this incident.

Although the USAF had ended tactical missions
from TSN, the VNAF still had several A-1H squadrons
operating out of TSN on bombing missions. During
the miserably hot and wet monsoon season, a taxiing
VNAF A1-H accidentally dropped a 250-pound high
explosive bomb onto the taxiway. The pilot had
been taxiing at a relatively high rate of speed, and
the bomb tumbled end over end and skidded along the
pavement, finally coming to a halt against the landing
gear of a USAF C-123 “Provider” transport aircraft
waiting to take off. The crew promptly shut down
the engines and rapidly exited the aircraft!

Staff Sergeant R. Hunt and I were in our EOD
truck waiting for tower clearance to cross the
taxiway, and saw the event take place. We
notified the SPs on our “borrowed” radio, and
proceeded to the C-123, while air traffic control shut
down operations in the vicinity. The bomb nose
fuse had shed all its external safety devices, and the
firing pin striker plate was in the fired
position. This meant that the slightest movement
could cause the firing pin to move in the fuse,
causing the bomb to detonate. Our job was to
prevent this from happening, if we could.

The SPs established a large cleared perimeter
to prevent possible injury to outside personnel, and
we went to work in the rain to gag the fuse. We
used quick-set plaster of paris to freeze the possible
movement of the firing pin, and gingerly removed the
fuse from the nose. It was a very delicate
operation, and as we got the fuse free, we were
shocked to hear a voice behind us say, “I wouldn’t
have your job for anything in the world!” The
voice, which scared us half to death, came from a
young SP who had moved in from the perimeter and had
been watching us from about 10 feet away. I
guess he didn’t realize he was in as much danger as we
had been!

Though it seemed like an eternity that we
worked on that fuse, the entire operation had only
taken about 20 minutes, and the tower personnel told
us on the radio that they couldn’t believe we had
taken care of the problem in such a short time.
Neither could we. That was the way I remember my
tour in Vietnam. While I was there, it seemed I
had been there forever. Then, quite suddenly, my
tour was over, and I was in the States. My next
assignment was to my “parent command,” Strategic Air
Command, as the Commander, 51st MMS, Vandenburg AFB,
California, servicing both Titan II and Minute Man
missile systems, and as the EOD Team Leader for the
Air Force Western Test Range. Over the next 18
months, I had many additional EOD adventures, though
perhaps none as intense as those in Vietnam. In
July, 1969, the Air Force decided to use my experience
to prepare others for the EOD “challenge,”
transferring me to the same EOD School at Indian Head
I had completed just four years earlier, where I
served first as director of training and finally as
Commander, 3429th Technical Training Squadron, and
where I finished out my 30-year career.